Last night I was at my friend Hugh's 70th birthday party. It was an open house affair and people drifted in all evening, making geezer jokes and periodically raising a toast as Hugh passed by. I'm not sure whether he wanted to "celebrate" his 70th or let it pass like a thief in the night, a thief who had grabbed a fistful of Hugh's élan and was making a break for it.
But there I was, at Hugh's house, talking guy stuff, something to do with Samurai swords and the art of crafting their hair-slicing edge 
- very "Kill Bill" hormonics -- when my wife sidled over to this male pod and interrupted us to announce that Walter Cronkite had just died.
She scanned us, patted me on the butt, turned and left. There was a loud silence in the pod. Nothing was said at first, just eyeballs scanning faces in front and beside, gauging the impact of the news. I mentioned to no one in particular that he had been ill for quite some time. Most didn't know that but nodded their heads solemnly.
Why would they have known? Cronkite's chronic illness was not a story that could breath deeply in our tumultuous political climate. Plus, other celebrities have been dying and taking up the celebrity oxygen for months: David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and, of course, Michael (I'm sure I left some people out).
But illness is one thing, death another. The death of icons does get your attention. I suppose we assess the stature of someone, their cultural prominence, their TV Q-value when we ask, "where were you when you heard so-and-so died?" I was at Hugh's 70th birthday party when Walter Cronkite died.
But for me, one of three reasons why learning of Mr. Cronkite's death rumbled in my brain was because of what happened on July 20th, 1969, the evening that astronaut Neil Armstrong set the craft down at 4:17 P.M. (EDT), and spoke the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Six and one-half hours later, almost 11 PM, EDT, Armstrong climbed down and set foot on lunar soil, saying, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Buzz Aldrin soon followed.
I watched this uber-historical event with someone special-my two month old daughter, Justine. Some minutes earlier, I had heartlessly awakened her, swept her up in my arms, carried her downstairs and we sat down in front of the television. I whispered into her uncomprehending ears, I just had to do this, Teenie. You won't remember it, I know. But I will remind you and you will care years from now that you witnessed, that you were there when earthlings landed on the moon.
Each time I saw her close her eyes, I would gently shake her until they opened again and stared at the screen. I wanted her to see, to subconsciously record the whole, extraordinary event. Curiously, and throughout this forced march into historic memory, she never once cried.
And who was narrating this technological, historical, sci-fi miracle? Walter Cronkite. His passion and fascination with the trip to the moon and all things NASA made him, in effect, the voice of the space program. He made it live, he made it understandable with his numerous specials on the subject, his mastery of the technical details so that the TV audience could better understand the why and how, the when and where that grew out of JFK's inauguration promise that America will put a man on the moon in "this decade."
Six years earlier Cronkite narrated the news of the assassination of JFK and the official announcement of his death. I remember the on-camera gulp and tears he was unable to suppress. And I remember his (too-) long-in-coming editorial to his CBS audience on February 27th, 1968. "For it seems now more certain than ever," Cronkite said, "that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate ... There is no way this war can be justified any longer."
After watching Cronkite's broadcast, LBJ was quoted as saying. "That's it. If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."
I remember these and other events anchor Cronkite presided over. He was an avuncular voice of trust and authority. Centuries earlier, George Washington, after leading a fledging nation to independence, was the most revered man in the United States. Yet, he turned down an appeal by the people and politicians to become King of the newly established nation and only reluctantly accepted its first presidency.
At his height, Walter Cronkite shared a parallel. He was called, by many, the most trusted man in America. Yet, he had the wisdom and, perhaps, like Washington, a non-opportunistic streak, to decline numerous suggestions and invitations to run for political office on the strength of this trust. For this, many of us respected his integrity. For such expressions of character, he was often considered a newsman's newsman.
It may surprise some but prime time TV network news was a once-proud institution. It was the emblem, the signature, the face of television networks. As a separate network division, it held sway for many years without having to make a profit. Its prestige and social value was its profit. Walter Cronkite came to epitomize that news stature.
Cronkite closed his CBS news show every night with the line, "And that's the way it is," followed by the date. An earlier TV educational show, which ran from 1953 to 1957, recreated historical events formatted as live news events and interviews was also hosted by Cronkite. On it, he had an even more memorable sign-off. At the end of each episode, after Cronkite summarized what happened in the preceding dramatization he reminded viewers, "What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there." The show was entitled "You Are There."
Because of television, because of TV news, because of people like Walter Cronkite we all were there and because of Cronkite's contribution to this nation, when his death was announced, I knew where I was. Thank you, Mr. Cronkite. My daughter thanks you too.
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